Thief of Time

reached them.

“He's doing it! He's doing it! Come away!” he shouted. With a jolt that shook the floor, another spinner stopped.

The three ran towards the end of the cavern, where the smaller Procrastinators were still whirling, but the halt was already speeding down the rows. Spinner after spinner slammed to a standstill, the domino effect overtaking the humans until, when they reached the little chalk spinners, they were in time to see the last ones rattle gently to a halt.

There was silence, except for the sizzle of grease and the click of cooling rock.

“Is it all over?” said Unity, wiping the sweat from her face with her dress and leaving a trail of sequins.

Lu-Tze and Susan looked at the glow at the other end of the hall, and then at one another.

“I… don't… think… so,” said Susan.

Lu-Tze nodded. “I think it's just—” he began.

Bars of green light leapt from spinner to spinner and hung in the air as rigid as steel. They flickered on and off between the columns, filling the air with thunderclaps. Patterns of switching snapped back and forth across the cavern.

The tempo increased. The thunderclaps became one long roll of overpowering sound. The bars brightened, expanded and then the air was all one brilliant light

Which vanished. The sound ceased so abruptly that the silence clanged.

The trio got to their feet, slowly.

“What was that?” said Unity.

“I think he made some changes,” said Lu-Tze.

The spinners were silent. The air was hot. Smoke and steam filled the roof of the cavern.

Then, responding to the routine of humanity's eternal wrestle with time, the spinners began to pick up the load.

It came gently, like a breeze. And the spinners took the strain, from the smallest to the largest, settling once again into their gentle, ponderous pirouette.

“Perfect,” said Lu-Tze. “Almost as good as it was, I'll bet.”

“Only almost?” said Susan, wiping the butter off her face.

“Well, he's partly human,” said the sweeper. They turned to the podium, and it was empty. Susan was not surprised. He'd be weak now, of course. Of course, something like this would take it out of anyone. Of course, he'd need to rest. Of course.

“He's gone,” she said flatly.

“Who knows?” said Lu-Tze. “For is it not written, ‘You never know what's going to turn up’?”

The reassuring rumble of the Procrastinators now filled the cave. Lu-Tze could feel the time flows in the air. It was invigorating, like the smell of the sea. I ought to spend more time down here, he thought.

“He broke history and repaired it,” said Susan. “Cause and cure. That makes no sense!”

“Not in four dimensions,” said Unity. “In eighteen, it's all perfectly clear.”

“And now, may I suggest you ladies leave by the back way?” said Lu-Tze. “People are going to come running down here in a minute and it's all going to get very excitable. Probably best if you aren't around.”

“What will you do?” said Susan.

“Lie,” said Lu-Tze happily. “It's amazing how often that works.”

–ick

Susan and Unity stepped out of a door in the rock and took the path that led through rhododendron groves out of the valley. The sun was touching the horizon and the air was warm, although there were snowfields quite close by.

At the lip of the valley the water from the stream plunged over a cliff in a fall so long that it landed as a sort of rain. Susan pulled herself onto a rock, and settled down to wait.

“It is a long way to Ankh-Morpork,” said Unity.

“We'll have a lift,” said Susan. The first stars were already coming out.

“The stars are very pretty,” said Unity.

“Do you really think so?”

“I am learning to. Humans believe they are.”

“The thing is… I mean, there's times when you look at the universe and you think, ‘What about me?’ and you can just hear the universe replying, ‘Well, what about you?’”

Unity appeared to consider this.

“Well, what about you?” she said.

Susan sighed. “Exactly.” She sighed again. “You can't think about just one person while you're saving the world. You have to be a cold, calculating bastard.”

“That sounded as if you were quoting somebody,” said Unity. “Who said that?”

“Some total idiot,” said Susan. She tried to think of other things, and added, “We didn't get all of them. There's still Auditors down there somewhere.”

“That will not matter,” said Unity calmly. “Look at the sun.”

“Well?”

“It is setting.”

“And…?”

“That means time is flowing through the world. The body exacts its toll Susan. Soon my—my former colleagues, bewildered and fleeing, will become tired. They will have to sleep.”

“I follow you, but—”

“I am insane. I know this. But the first time it happened to me I found such horror that I cannot express it. Can you imagine what it is like? For an intellect a billion years old, in a body which is an ape on the back of a rat that grew out of a lizard? Can you imagine what comes out of the dark places, uncontrolled?”

“What are you telling me?”

“They will die in their dreams.”

Susan thought about this. Millions and millions of years of thinking precise, logical thoughts—and then humanity's murky past drops all its terrors on you in one go. She could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

“But you didn't,” she said.

“No. I think I must be… different. It is a terrible thing to be different, Susan. Did you have romantic hopes in connection with the boy?”

The question came out of nowhere and there was no defence. Unity's face showed nothing but a kind of nervous concern.

“No,” said Susan. Unfortunately, Unity did not seem to have mastered some of the subtleties of human conversation, such as when a tone of voice means “Stop this line of inquiry right now or may huge rats eat you by day and by night.”

“I confess to strange feelings regarding his… self that was the clockmaker. Sometimes, when he smiled, he was normal. I wanted to help him, because he seemed so closed in and sad.”

“You don't have to confess to things like that,” Susan snapped. “How do you even know the word romantic, anyway?” she added.

“I found some books of poetry.” Unity actually looked embarrassed.

“Really? I've never trusted it,” said Susan. Huge, giant, hungry rats.

“I found it most curious. How can words on a page have a power like that? There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,” said Unity sadly.

Susan felt a stab of guilt. It wasn't Unity's fault, after all. People learn things as they grow up, things that never get written down. And Unity had never grown up.